Hartford Seeks To Start Citywide Youth Athletics Initiative

STEPHEN DUNN / Hartford Courant

Members of the Hartford Firefighters baseball team cheered during a game at the Elizabeth Park Little League field. They are, left to right: Eddie Cruz, 11, Nico Rees, 12, Julian Colon, 11 and Abraham Tejada, 9. The team is part of the Mayor Mike Peters Little League.

Members of the Hartford Firefighters baseball team cheered during a game at the Elizabeth Park Little League field. They are, left to right: Eddie Cruz, 11, Nico Rees, 12, Julian Colon, 11 and Abraham Tejada, 9. The team is part of the Mayor Mike Peters Little League.

HARTFORD — The city may soon have a sports czar to oversee what would be the first extensive youth athletics program administered in partnership with the public schools, officials said.

The city council has approved $90,000 toward management costs, including a new Hartford athletic director, and Superintendent Beth Schiavino-Narvaez has pledged to work with Mayor Pedro Segarra on developing the initiative that advocates say is long overdue.

The council wants a plan by Aug. 5 on how to operate a program that coordinates the fragmented collection of youth athletic leagues that use Hartford's playing fields and gymnasiums, and gives students who want to play a chance to learn fundamentals at a young age.

For starters, there is no recreational program in the capital city for girls who want to play softball. And it's not for lack of natural talent that the baseball team for Weaver High, a school with a rich athletic tradition, recently celebrated its first two wins after a 98-game losing streak spread over five years.

Council President Shawn Wooden, a lead supporter of the initiative, credited Hartford native Brian Gallagher, 32, a physical education teacher and varsity coach at Classical Magnet School, for pushing city officials to create a robust sports program that reaches children in all neighborhoods and makes equitable use of public fields.

The state of youth sports in Hartford "drove me crazy," Gallagher said this week. "It's like we're our own little world."

There are roughly three different youth football organizations, a couple of baseball leagues, a hockey group, Hartford Soccer Club and several basketball programs, said Gallagher, who was involved in starting Mayor Mike Peters Little League and runs the soccer club and a hoops league for children.

But when it comes to sharing city fields, which are first come, first served, it's "winner takes all," Gallagher said. "There's no one who is bringing that all together and getting it out there to other kids."

Gallagher, who helped found a nonprofit group for youth sports called Active City, proposed a Hartford athletic department in a master's thesis for Southern Connecticut State University, citing research that shows that students involved in athletics are more likely to have better attendance and graduate from high school. At a minimum, student-athletes must maintain at least a "C" average to remain eligible to play.

Sports can also pull students off the street and boost their self-esteem, advocates say.

Gallagher's proposal calls for four tiers of Hartford athletics: Varsity level, a citywide intramural program for teenagers who are beginners in their sport, bolstering middle school athletics, and creating a recreational program for elementary students that would be jointly managed by the school district and the city's "czar of sports," working with existing athletic leagues in the community.

The school board, fresh off a 2015-16 education budget that eliminates dozens of jobs, endorsed Schiavino-Narvaez's collaboration with the city but has not promised any funding for the initiative.

Aside from talent being spread over a dozen-plus high schools and magnet programs that now exist in the school system, coaches point to the absence of recreational sports as a reason why some Hartford teams routinely get clobbered on the scoreboards.

In softball, South Windsor beat Weaver 37-0 on May 11, according to conference records. In April, New Britain defeated Hartford Public in a 31-0 shutout. And in a May doubleheader against Middletown, Bulkeley lost 25-0 and 18-0.

Hartford coaches have said it's not uncommon for girls to reach high school and sign up for the softball team, where they learn how to catch and throw for the first time. Then they face out-of-town players who have been fielding grounders and practicing their swing since elementary school.